No Chicken Kiev in Kiev for this Vegetarian

Because cars are allowed to drive on sidewalks, navigating Kiev on foot was perilous at best but not impossible. One rule of thumb will get you around: beware, pedestrians never have the right of way! Otherwise, my long weekend in the capital city with Jonathan was a real treat that included magnificent views, English speakers and good food, for a change.

We spent half a day at the city’s most well-known site, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The Lavra is a series of intimate streets that make up this Ukrainian Orthodox monastery which feels like a small city in and of itself. It is the preeminent center of Christian orthodoxy in Eastern Europe and was founded in the early 11th century. Unfortunately, nothing was written in English and our guidebook didn’t provide much more. In my broken Russian, I managed to exchange a few words with a monk who apparently mistook us for pilgrims (as opposed to tourists, a big difference which my language skills did not decipher) and helped arrange a special tour reserved for the most devout. Oops.

We spent several hours with a guide from the nunnery who was on to us when she realized we were not baptized. Still, she allowed us this profound opportunity to learn about the religious and spiritual life of nearly half of my Ukrainian neighbors. The main attraction at the monastery are the historic caves, a complex system of underground corridors, working churches and nearly 100 catacombs of saints where the pious arrive from around the world seeking favor and blessings. It is said that their “holy and corrupted” bodies were preserved through miracles; you can view their clothed remains and exposed hands through glass coffins using light from small candles purchased at the entrance.

Of course, we also made several Jewish site visits including to the Hesed Welfare Center which serves more than 14,000 elderly and at-risk clients in the city compared with the several thousand in Dnepropetrovsk. Our Jewish tour ended on a sobering note at Babi Yar, a ravine in the city center where during the course of two days, September 29-30, 1941, the Nazis murdered 33,771 Jews, the single largest massacre during the Holocaust. In the months that followed, more than 100,000 people from Ukraine, mostly Jews, were also murdered at this site. The large menorah monument presented on the 50th anniversary of the massacre is a reminder of the city’s grisly history; and, just across from the memorial children played soccer and went sledding without a care in the world.